Vegetation trimming devices are well known and are commonly used to maintain one's lawn and garden. There are a number of different classes of rotary trimmer heads defined generally by the manner in which a monofilament trimmer line is fed, spooled or replaced in the trimmer head and/or how the trimmer line is discharged, indexed or lengthened during use of the trimmer head. Regardless of the type of trimmer head, almost all trimmer heads require the user to cut a portion of the trimmer line from a master spool or package. The cut trimmer line can then be installed in the head for use in cutting vegetation.
One class of rotary trimmer head is a bump-activated trimmer head. A second class of rotary trimmer head is a “fixed-line” trimmer head. The majority of after-market trimmer heads for rotary trimmers that are sold are fixed-line trimmer heads. These types of trimmer heads are easily designed to be universally adaptable to essentially any brand of rotary trimmer regardless of the operation of the trimmer head or the direction of rotation. Such trimmer heads utilize a housing which has a series of spaced line holders or an easy means or inserting, holding and/or removing multiple trimmer lines. As the line wears, the consumer must cut a new piece of trimmer line and manually insert the new length of trimmer line into a line channel maintained within the trimmer head. The consumer controls the length of the line that is inserted. Such trimmer heads have gained wide acceptance in the market in view of their ease-of-use.
There are a number of options available to cut the trimmer line to a desired length. The consumer may carry a knife or pair of scissors with them to cut the line to length or, as usually happens, the consumer must return to their house or garage and find an implement with a sharp edge and then cut the line to length. Taking a break from the task of trimming for the purpose of finding an implement to cut the trimmer line can be frustrating. Walking into one's house with debris on one's clothing can lead to making a mess in the house, and the trimmer machine must be left outside unattended.
It is also known to provide a knife member on a housing for a rotary trimmer as shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,052,789. However, original equipment manufacturers are not offering this feature.
Still another option for cutting a trimmer line to length is to provide a package in which the trimmer line is sold with a cutting implement as is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 9,266,698, which is incorporated herein by reference, entitled “Package For Monofilament Line With Embedded Cutting Tool And Related Method.” While this option does provide a level of convenience, not all packages of trimmer line are sold with integrated cutters.
The last two options do provide a level of convenience; however, there is a need in the art for a trimmer head incorporating a cutter which will readily provide a convenience means for trimming monofilament trimmer line at the point of use and will work with any package of trimmer line.